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I think you are strikingly naive if you somehow genuinely believe that

those upvoters don't share any agenda

because in a sense they share the same agenda as r/srs: identity.

These people are not random and anonymous. They are real people who you go to work with and sit on the bus with and play football with and drink with and laugh with. They are not bad fucking apples. They are normal people - good people, even - who cling to harmful, hateful ideas because they are so frequently reinforced without challenge.

The nonsensical, reductive view that people who post bigoted and hateful material on Reddit are somehow incarnations of moral turpitude who stand apart from a decent, moral, law-abiding mass is precisely what is so harmful about the posts ArchangelleJophielle pointed to. I don't choose that term 'moral turpitude' without consideration. It's a phrase that was used, until recently, to describe homosexual acts in law; it refers to a dereliction of social and moral duty by the standards of a community. We can, as individuals, make an effort to alter what constitutes vulgarity in our community.

And Reddit as a community, as a community of self-identified progressives, as a community with a strong social conscience, as a community that rightly celebrates its many acts of altruism, simply doesn't do enough to stop, to think, and to challenge its own assumptions. To think about the harm their actions might bring. In the balance we may find that our casual transgressions outweigh the sum of our greatest accomplishments.

When people say that their sexist, racist jokes are just that - jokes - they have a point, of sorts. All things being equal these jokes don't harm anyone. But we inhabit a world where birth is a lottery, where suffering is distributed with great inequality, and where prejudice and bigotry are a real threats to people and their ability to function as full members of society. To say that the jokes and jeers of a few 'bad apples' does no harm on a greater scale is foolish. It reinforces bigoted opinions. It inculcates people with bigoted attitudes. We cannot ignore the fact that our world is inherited. We don't stand in isolation from a primitive and brutal past. We're not so civilized that we have conquered the tyranny of our own vanities: we stand not only on the shoulders of giants but on the corpses of slaves.

I'm not asking you to feel guilty for the actions of your ancestors; I'm asking you as a rational, emotional human being to acknowledge the web of subtle influences that play at your perception and shape your language, your actions.

The apprehension of these subtleties is part of what it means to be an adult; to abide by the dictates of morality, especially when they conflict with your desires, is what it means to be a decent human being. SRS and the bigots have the same agenda, and that agenda is 'identity'. Do we allow our identity to be defined for us? Or do we rebel against the institutions that we find unjust? Do we mock and ridicule those who are different? Or do we mock and ridicule the casual misanthropy which others allow to flourish unchecked?

teefs anger is understandable, normal, forgivable, even reasonable. However, it's not righteous. Not every hetero cis male is disgusting.
How about we keep our righteous anger directed towards these harmful attitudes and beliefs you talk about, and not towards any particular group of people?

Righteousness is standing your moral ground, sticking up for what you believe in. Someone doesn't stop being "righteous" simply because their beliefs don't align with yours. The Klan, the Taliban, and even Westboro Baptist Church are all righteous. Though I don't align with such people, I can't deny the righteous hate that fuels them. Being righteous isn't being right, it's believing you are. "Beware the righteous man..."

The nature of human language, especially English, is that words mean what the people using and hearing/reading them think they mean. I may be less typical than I think I am, but I expect most people's understanding of the word "righteous" is more in line with mine and fqewrwerweyutdg's than with yours.

He never defined it, nor have you. You've only said what you feel it is not. A dictionary is good for settling these sorts of things and I checked one before to not make a fool of myself. Your welcome to as well. Your also welcome to make the word your own. Let it stand for whatever you feel is just and truly righteous but as I said before, "Beware the righteous man." I think low of righteous folk for their hearts are cold and their minds bigoted. They think only of justice, God, and law not of understanding not of piece.

I'm a hetero cis-gendered male and I'm such an ardent ally that I've frequently thrown off people's "gaydars" because they assume no one can be that passionate about GLBTQIA issues and not be in the closet himself. I can appreciate teef's frustration, but I draw the line at righteous, because teef is being hypocritical in condemning all hetero cis-gendered males and turning off potential allies, which is extraordinarily counterproductive.

I agree that "righteous" is probably not the right word; but the point is that when a trans person says something like that, the kneejerk response is to talk about how impolite and unhelpful the statement was, rather than discussing the fucked up societal engine that pushes people to these emotional limits, the climate that begets such blind hatred in marginalized people.

I sympathize but don't condone. It's tough being downtrodden and we expect them to be saints in the order of Ghandi and MLK (who had their own faults and personal failures), which is a tall order of anyone.

You're missing my point. It's still wrong to implicate "reddit" as being the source of this bigotry. SRS unapologetically refers to the people they link to as "redditry", state that "Reddit is a museum of poop" and frequently describe reddit itself as the problem, not the bigots themselves. It's as though you're not out to fight bigotry as such, but rather to use bigotry to prove that reddit is awful.

And Reddit as a community, as a community of self-identified progressives, as a community with a strong social conscience, as a community that rightly celebrates its many acts of altruism, simply doesn't do enough to stop, to think, and to challenge its own assumptions.

The idea that reddit is a "community" with shared values is a myth. reddit is a communications tool used by many different types of people. Any appearance of group cohesiveness is illusory. Many have even noted that as the site has become larger, it has declined in quality. All that's really happening is that the truth is becoming more and more evident, that reddit's user base has become too large to truly stand for anything.

Thanks for replying. I didn't miss your point, but I think perhaps I let myself get carried away with the 'what' while ignoring the 'why'.

You are absolutely correct to say that "reddit" is a misattribution for the source of this bigotry; and I agree that reddit is a communications tool. I don't think that SRS would disagree with you there. But the idea that group cohesion is an illusion? The notion that reddit is simply too large - that quality is a function of size? That I can't accept. It doesn't make any sense. Reddit is no more 'too big' than America is 'too big'. If we can't change peoples' attitudes on a website - a website that allows for a breadth and depth of discussion unparalleled in human history - then what hope do we have for the citizens of a nation-state?

Even though I agree with a lot of what you have to say, I think this

The idea that reddit is a "community" with shared values is a myth.

is rather contrarian of you. It's not difficult to play this game: we can split hairs over what constitutes a 'true Scotsman' until the very heart of Midlothian is balkanised into a six-foot patch of earth for every man, woman and child, or we can agree that there are values which we hold in common in spite of the differences which make us unique.

What we might be able to agree on, I hope, is that Reddit's bigotry and SRS have have a single source; that they both emerge from preconditions fostered by a legacy of social mores. It is this legacy which constitutes Reddit's set of shared values; mostly white, mostly male, with safe bourgeois conceptions of difference and the limits of experience.

It is also this legacy which 'created' SRS, in a sense. SRS does not exist to fight bigotry. It's not really even a circlejerk. It's there because people are angry that they're experiencing the same marginalisation they and the ones they love encounter in the rest of the world. They're angry that empty vessels are allowed to rattle on while they themselves are silenced. But unlike the real world, on Reddit organised dissent is trivial, as there, right on the front page, you're invited to create a community for likeminded people. Of likeminded, pissed-off, sick-to-the-back-teeth of your shit people.

SRS is a function of the system.

If you hate SRS. If you really hate that a bunch of queers, feminists and oversensitive college kids got together and made a secret treehouse club so they could laugh together at the people who hate them rather than suffer alone and in silence, then do something to fix your world.

Something other than writing a bot that posts links.
Something other than lamenting that the bigotry on Reddit is too nebulous to cure.
Something other than saying that basic standards of human decency is something we're too large to stand for.

You might also like to know that it's been said by the admins that more upvotes are given out than downvotes, meaning that agreement/approval of posts is registered at a greater rate than is disagreement/disapproval. Therefore, the fact that a bigoted post might have more upvotes than downvotes doesn't mean that a majority of reddit agrees with that bigoted sentiment.

Q: How many Americans does it take to kill Matthew Shepherd?

A: 300,000,002 - two to beat him to death, and 300 million 'not to agree with that bigoted sentiment'

while I love what you have written and the amazing form of it, i feel you still are viewing this wrong. Just because someone is covered in less mud doesn't make him the cleanest man around. SRS, while a home for righteous anger, doesn't mean it is in the right. If a police officer kills 2 innocent bystanders to take down 12 gang members selling drugs, it is not a good thing. SRS lacks a situational awareness that would allow them to accomplish any other goal then shutting down all reasonable conversation on a topic.

If that is really what they want to foster, they would allow it in their own forums. But as anyone who has tried to bring reason into their home subreddit finds, they quickly get shut down, belittled and banned. Just because they are better a better brand of bigots hardly makes them a beacon for the people to rally behind.

My beef with SRS isn't just with their methods. It is with their hatred (and it is hatred) of anything men's rights, something they systematically dismiss, to put it kindly. Just because you have issues you care about doesn't mean you have to bring down other people with their own.

I say you can't blame all of reddit for the bigotry that turns up here, because reddit is a tool that many people use, there's not even a semblance of shared values, and in that same respect, you can't define SRS as being a group of shared values either. Some SRSers are in it for the drama, some want to make a difference, some are commiserating, some hate reddit, some don't, some are rational, others aren't.

When I talk about SRS, I'll only speak to what it produces, because that is the only thing we can be certain of. Does the product of SRS further equality for LGBTs and minorities? Not only do I highly doubt it, but some SRSers have even stated that they don't particularly care whether or not it does. SRS is not so much about a shared good cause as much as it's about a shared bad attitude.

Something other than saying that basic standards of human decency is something we're too large to stand for.

It's not that reddit is too large to stand for something, it's that nobody is here with the intention of standing for things. It's because of the fact that reddit promotes popular posts on it's front pages that there appears to be a collective consciousness, but there's not, it's merely a zeitgeist of the demographics the website has attracted.

Something other than lamenting that the bigotry on Reddit is too nebulous to cure.

Regardless of SRS' intentions - nebulous as they are - it doesn't have the net effect of curing reddit of bigotry, so if that were my aim, I'd still be at odds with SRS.

Something other than writing a bot that posts links.

The purpose of the bot is simply to force the two parties to interact on some level. Not only do I think it's entertaining, but I feel that it's constructive.

Such finely composed writing. I do not fancy long quarrels through text... I'll simply say I enjoyed reading both your opinions (HITALARIOUS/A_GAY_LASER) and may you have a great day. Regardless of your differing and perhaps battle provoking thoughts, you both are the reason this website beats, lives, defines the web if you may, like no other.

I do believe this quote can sum up my thoughts: Strangers passing in the street, by chance to separate glances meet, and I am you and what I see is me.- Roger Waters

Your theory would have merit if the SRS mob were actually being silenced and persecuted in the real world, but most of them are of the same background as those who they ostensibly hate - mostly ''white males'' - they are pretending to be extremist feminists and pretending to care about minorities so that they can use fake outrage as an excuse to behave as badly as those who they criticise ... they don't really care about women or minorities, as you can see what happens to any woman or minority who goes in there and expresses concerns about their behaviour

Neither, although I guess if I had to choose it'd be the second one; either way, I haven't noticed the phenomenon that you're pointing out, and would like you to open my eyes to it. Your response makes me think you don't have any links.

I distinctly don't go there very often as the two or three times I have stumbled into r/SRS I've gotten the impression it is about the level of /r/spacedicks. I just ignore it (let others be). I'm here b/c of A_GAY_LASER's good writing above.

To...garner some sympathy for your side? Or just to satisfy my curiosity, whatever. I'm not trying to mess with you or anything, I'd really like to know what you're talking about.

The worst I've seen was when the woman who was the subject of some fairly standard "omg a girl in a picture" harassment came in and defended her harassers. SRS obviously didn't agree with her, but definitely didn't act as if they "don't really care about women and minorities."

Community, when properly cared for, should constantly improve, and that will only ever happen when the majority of members decide to take good, honest look at themselves and agree that complacency is harmful.

clearly you have yet to hear of the original imageboards such as 4chan pre 2008. it was similarly like reddit and then it exploded and issues such as "righteous" anger and the fight against this "inequality" happened. as people say 4chan was never a good place and neither is reddit. Learn to live with the difference about different people. And if you are to preach tolerance, be a role model and show that tolerance. You dont call yourself a genius or a nice person you let other people do that for you. Let your own actions define your words. So instead of trying to "change" the world through online reddit, get your ass off the computer and join an NGO and start volunteering.

Even though your name is hitlarious you do have a point.
If everyone on reddit thought the same thing there would be no need for subreddits because all the topics people liked would already be discussed and occupied.
Reddit may be a community of sorts but it's not a unsegmented one.
People have personal views and you can't generalize them by picking and choosing a few comments that srs doesn't like, more so, you can't pretend your viewpoint is the only viewpoint.

He's just asking people to change their behaviour, that's hardly a restriction, is it? Those who don't agree with his view on how the world ought to be run can simply ignore him.

You yourself have just voiced your opinion publicly. You are expressing yourself just as he is, you both restrict me equally by attempting to persuade me of the validity of your point of view.

Perhaps you feel unfairly restricted because you think a lot of people agree with him. In which case, maybe you implicitly agree that widely held attitudes and opinions can have very real effects on personal liberty.

I guess it comes down to a personal choice between freedoms. The freedom to say what you like without being made to feel like an asshole for not being politically correct, vs the freedom to live your life without being made to feel inferior by the widespread underlying attitudes of others. In other words, 4chan vs Reddit.

You might also like to know that it's been said by the admins that more upvotes are given out than downvotes, meaning that agreement/approval of posts is registered at a greater rate than is disagreement/disapproval. Therefore, the fact that a bigoted post might have more upvotes than downvotes doesn't mean that a majority of reddit agrees with that bigoted sentiment.

Can one be hetero without also being cis? I mean, I like girls but I don't like watching sports, I'll play them occasionally. I'll go to the gym on occasion but I also ride an e-bike. I like graphic novels but I cried reading message in a bottle (the last chapter is gut wrenching). I support LGBT and am oft mistaken for a gay (mostly because i have good fashion sense). So, my question, do I fit the stereotypical gender roles, I don't think so, but should I still be considered cis simply because I'm a white male who has no sexual interest in other males?

it's a righteous anger that comes from having been denied the smallest, the least liberty; the right not to have someone tell her who she is.

That's not a liberty. Liberty is the freedom to act without restraint. Words don't restrain us. If they did, I could accuse you of denying me my liberty to not have you tell me what to think or how to act.

You're thinking of Rights. Rights are entitlements to things. The right to not be told who someone is has to come at the expense of someone else's liberty.

Rights come at the expense of liberties. The right to live? That comes at the expense of someone's liberty to kill you. The right to not be talked to? That comes at the expense of someone's liberty to talk to you.

So what's SRS's job in relation to this? Well, the Archangelle in this thread believes that SRS members don't downvote en masse, and don't comment regularly in the threads. If that's true, then they aren't doing anything to affect the change they want to see. They're preaching to the choir in their subreddits, instead of thoughtfully engaging the commenters they abhor.

I don't agree with their interpretation, but don't act like their goal is to affect the change you want to see. Their goal is to talk about it.

That's not a liberty. Liberty is the freedom to act without restraint. Words don't restrain us. If they did, I could accuse you of denying me my liberty to not have you tell me what to think or how to act.

Oh golly I'm a little ticked off by this one. But I can see you're angry too! That's OK, there's a lot of passion running around these issues.

So. Broadly speaking we might think of two sorts of liberty:

Merely freedom from restraint, which is the sort of liberty you're referring to

Freedom to realise yourself, and fulfill your potential both socially and commercially

The first sort of liberty is that beloved of Libertarians - the liberty to do as you please, where your own abilities, and not the checks and balances of the state, determine your level of success. The problem with this form of liberty is that while people are excellent at being the masters of themselves, they're also pretty good at being the masters of others into the bargain; for every Andrew Carnegie there are ten Harry Limes. As you rightly say, this form of liberty is pretty horrible because it brings acts like murder into the scope of 'liberty' - it's no good as a basis for any society.

And as you can see, it leads to some absurd statements:

The right to not be talked to? That comes at the expense of someone's liberty to talk to you.

You're right - how can anyone have a right not to be talked to? In practice, though, communities and societies develop ways of modifying communications.

The purpose of a comment voting system is to enable communication in an environment where many threads of discussion can take place simultaneously - at the least, we need a way to filter out the copypastas and 'FIRST' posts, the comments with no semantic value or relevance to the discussion. Beyond a certain downvote threshold, comments are invisible. So on reddit, there is no unchecked freedom to talk. Your freedom to talk can be taken away in part - by downvoting a single comment - or semi-permanently, as your comment karma drops ever lower, limiting your ability to speak. This is deliberate - the voting community will dictate who has power to talk in order to conduct a focused discussion. This community is different depending on the subreddit - so /r/askscience will have different standards for valuable speech to /r/aww.

Words, moreover, do restrain us. Words have power. Literal, instrumental power. The organs of the state exercise their power frequently in the form of what are called 'speech-acts': "I'm placing you under arrest", "You are found guilty", "I now pronounce you man and wife" &c. Kids will mimic this as they learn about the authority structures and boundaries of our world: playing cops and robbers, 'marrying' their friends, playing inquisitor & 'torturing' a confession out of a heretic. Instrumental authority and the correct set of actors (e.g. a minister, a man and a woman) are prerequisites for these sorts of speech-acts.
Influential authority is what your parents have. It's what your peers have. It's implicit. It's what stops sane people from saying whatever they want (most of the time, anyway). Because people fear approbation. They fear ostracism. This power doesn't exist in isolation. A lack of engagement and validation from a community can be crippling. You can crush a person's hopes and happiness with just a few words. And you don't even need words. You can do it with a look.

At the moment, on reddit, that power is concentrated in the hands of people who don't realise the harm they're doing some of the time. It's not just about downvotes; it's the attitude that informs downvoting. This has to change.

Everyone has the freedom to talk; if they say things we don't like, which hurt us, and which hurt the community, we can downvote them. But this is ineffective in a system where identity is arbitrary. This is my twenty-sixth account. If you lose peoples' trust today, you can simply reregister and start afresh. The problem has to do with attitudes. HITLARIOUS pointed out that more upvotes are dispensed than downvotes; so what we need is not a downvote brigade, but a community that is willing to check and balance marginalisation and bigotry using the voting system. We need to make it shameful to be a bigot. Because at the moment, it isn't; or if it is, people aren't acting on it. And that inaction is no better than tacit approval.

So it's the second form of liberty that I'm interested in. Positive liberty, the freedom to realise your potential! But we must resist the temptation to characterise other peoples' ideals as purely reactionary; not everything is a power-play. You are not master of your own destiny if all you're content to do is fearfully regurgitate the attitudes and norms that have been handed down to you. This legacy teaches you to apprehend certain forms of difference as a threat to the integrity of your own identity, and your freedom to choose your own path in life. But it's unavoidable that we surrender certain freedoms in return for others. And what are we talking about, really - that, for example, you keep to yourself that you feel a transwoman isn't really a woman, an effort of will that costs so little in return for immeasurably improving someone's quality of life. Forestall your own immediate reactions; silence the voice in your head that tells you what's what, and open yourself to others.

What's the point of me saying this? I'm not defending SRS. I agree with everything you said about SRS. But you speak of freedoms upon which people are impinging without ever identifying the most important freedoms you have as a rational, emotional being. What of your freedom to think before you speak? What of your freedom to empathise? What of your freedom to stand up for the rights of others?

I need change to come from you. I need change to come from the people who don't identify as SRS regulars. People who can never be identified as feminazis and fat dykes and not-really-that-gender and white knights by people who only know how to play a thoughtless game of call-and-response. I need you to surprise people with your views. I need you to erode this notion that somehow there's a real world of common-sense values that is the purview and sole domain of people who have a right to exist without challenge.

If you want to destroy SRS, the surest way is to create a community where SRS could never exist in the first place: inclusive, respectful, polysemous and alive.

Freedom to realise yourself, and fulfill your potential both socially and commercially

I agree with you that words can restrain people. And I think you'll agree that any human action can restrain someone else. My presence restrains someone from taking my physical location. However, you think too broadly of freedom. And in my view, your are conflating freedom with rights.

Why? Because your freedom creates obligations on other people to not act in certain ways. If you create a community where people are inclusive or respectful, you require them to refrain from their actions. Or alternatively, you must prevent them from wanting those actions in the first. Either way, they must be touched.

There's a reason that positive liberty is a relatively small philosophical field. I think there's only 2 or 3 major philosophers who considered the idea. Meanwhile, the major strands of thought on liberty stayed away from such a broad concept. The USA has "pursuit of happiness," not the attainment of it. Many other countries are the same way.

It seems that we fundamentally disagree though both on the terms and on the ideal, so I won't reply any more. Please look at your last statement and consider it again: If I really wanted to destroy SRS, why would I create what they want?

At the risk of being pedantic I would like to claim that no, words themselves do not have power beyond the inconsequential sonic force they create. The power of words lies entirely in the actions resulting from them.
Your example is suitable; the difference between the "You're under arrest" is completely different depending on whether or not there is physical force behind it.

So, you have never been moved, outraged, offended, frightened, or demeaned by what someone has said to you or that have read? I agree that words have no direct physical impact, but they can have devastating or transformative emotional effects. If words had no power, Reddit would be a very calm, boring place.

If we're saying that a bigot is: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who exhibits intolerance or animosity toward members of a group.

Then yes.

What our eloquent poster here is suggesting is a system where we don't communicate our taken offense in the manner of bigots. Whether this is practical, or even desirable, I won't wager to say. It will, however, make discussion calmer, and more respectful, if a bit boring (and likely humorless).

No, it's bigoted to label an entire group disgusting because of the behaviour of a few. It would have been much better to say "this behaviour is disgusting" rather than "these people are disgusting". As a member of that group who does not engage in the complained about behaviour, the statement certainly seems bigoted against me. It's totally forgivable, it's not like I suffer a lot because of sexism, and I totally understand why someone would want to lash out about that kind of behaviour. But that's not really the point of this discussion.

I think people should feel guilty about what their ancestors have done, unless they reject any pride for their ancestors actions. One can not come without the other. If you're "proud to be an American" you should also be ashamed of being one.

Then again maybe people could focus on taking pride in and responsibilities for their own actions instead.

Do you mean to say that precisely because there is a stereotype, a negative one, of one group therefore the same from a member of your group to another is "righteous"? The pride in which you place in being the opposite, or rather the effort you put into that, is wholly negated with that one final sentence. And what right has teefs to say what hetero cis men are? May I say that teefs and people like her are fucking disgusting? Can I phrase that in a way that it specifically points out her gender identity and use that as the point I describe as fucking disgusting?

To you and the srs you are a hero no doubt, to me you are not any different from those that you criticise, in that you never removed the doublethink from your own person.

But see I understand the exasperation that you probably face in being constantly told xyz, but that does not justify anything. And by this I mean the disgusting posts and comments I have seen on SRS, in many cases they disregard the context, the motivation and so forth of the poster. I have seen a few /r/sex posts criticised, and frequently these are people that turn to the community for help and advice cause they in their situation are not sure to do. Then /srs/ takes that and paints it as a malicious and conscious effort on the part of the OP, to create that situation.

You also love to group all of reddit as one, sure you can argue that those comments are indicative of the community as a whole, but by doing this your whole argument loses its impact. Here you advocate lack of stereotyping and awareness, and turn around and do exactly what you don't want to be done to the group you are trying to convince! Despite the soundness of the argument that stereotypes are bad as distinct from your hypocrisy, people will resit you and your message because they know you to be hypocritical and absolutely hostile to them. "Hetero cis men are fucking disgusting". I may not be a hetero cis man, but if I was I would feel alienated from your whole perspective.

Maybe SRS is just as damaging to your goals as the jokes and comments on reddit?

Nice speech, I've read thousands of similar ones from the lowly peasant worker to famous figures people like Hitler, but in the end that's all they ever remain, a speech. Lets 'speech' our way to true freedom and equality cause politicians are working real miracles with it now, lol.

No, you are wrong. Jokes dont reinforce anything. Jokes, by the nature of what it is, are absurd. For people that arent as blindsided by their own selfrightouness as SRS is, a joke being more absurd makes it better. It doesnt reinforce, it doesnt teach, it just shines a light on. A racist joke can work against racism as much as for it, and it really depends on the person and the tone(SRS chooses to pick their point of view that all of them are reinforcing).

Comedy is often the easiest way to speak about hard topics, it is a bridge between that shameful past acknowledging that it actually happened. Thats why great comedians in the past have always been controversial. You want to gut a great part of society, just because you are blindsided. To me this whole post sounded like pure rationalizing of SRS and its terrible attitude and behavior.

First off, I'd like to say that that was really well written. In all honesty, I'd love be be able to write like you some day, although I don't find myself intelligent enough to be up to par with your class and knowledge. That being said, I'd like to say a few things.

Growing up, I was just like every other racist, sexist asshole, and to this day make jokes involving racial/sexual slurs (but that doesn't mean I'm proud of it). The thing is, I used to literally think that people being a certain skin tone or sex actually meant that something that defines them as 'black', 'yellow', 'red', 'female', or what have you, holds them down, so as to deem them weaker, less intelligent, or even less competent than a person like myself. But what strikes me as odd is that you seem to be missing something. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not about to act like I'm smarter than you, or hell, anyone else (just giving my two cents).

The thing is, not too long ago, I turned around. I started thinking, equality would solve most, if not all problems we encounter daily, and the like. You know, no one get's left behind, the weak hold up the strong, and all that jazz (trust me, I don't mean to downplay this, because I still agree with all of these ideas). Now, it makes sense to me that I don't just assume that this person I just met, even though he's black, is going to be some self-righteous, arrogant, obnoxious prick. Nah, I'm past that, and instead assume that he's going to be a new friendly face in my life. I've grown more respectful of people that just plain aren't like me as I've gotten older.

But not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend that really redefined my outlook on life. It started off with me bitching (again) about how idiotic war is, and that so many people support it and join the military, etc. However, he asked me something like, "Why do you think that people consider it necessary?" Naturally, my response was, "It's not. If people didn't inspire such moronic ideas that spawned the necessity for war, there wouldn't be a point." Then, he said, "Well that's the point, we live in a vicarious world (he was literally referring to the song by Tool at this point "Vicarious".), where the strong step on the weak, the mindless follow the rich, and the orderly governments FORCE people to do their bidding. So do you really think people are going to play by the rules? Really, how misguided are you?" he said. "How ignorant can you be to think that Saddam Hussein or Hitler thought that 'Oh, this isn't fair, what I'm doing. I shouldn't be slaughtering all of these people, it's just unfair to them, their families, and all of their friends.' No, they're deranged, psychotic, troubled human beings. They had the power to commit genocide, and take what wasn't theirs, only for the sake of selfishness and ignorance. They didn't' stop to think about who they hurt, they pillaged towns and murdered families. People like that don't stop to take occurrences like that in, they just keep on shooting."

From then on I knew, we don't live in a world where everything is equal. Sure, we've come to the point in our evolution that intelligence tends to override our instincts to kill someone when we're mad at them, rape a women who looks ripe for coitus, or take something just because they'd like to have it. No, we're currently at the point where we've established communities, organizations, and governments. So we've outlawed such barbaric, primitive actions. But people still do, ignoring the fact that we're too good to be acting like creatures we've purposely evolved from in order to prevent such atrocities from bringing us down, so that we as a species can survive.

As I grow older, I see that this idea is undeniable, and to be frank, unavoidable. I don't know how to combat it, as it baffles me. Maybe with the help of people certified to the point that they could establish a system to perpetuate an avoidance of disruption of equality, harm of the weak, and oppression of the ignorant, we can break through our beastly nature which holds us back from stepping forward into a more civilized, cooperative, understanding species. But until then, I can only see this attempt to stop these things as futile. There'll always be 'those' kinds of people, and no matter how much I wish that we didn't have to deal with them, they aren't going anywhere. Trust me, I don't condone these ideas in any fashion. Nor do I support the notion that all people are genuinely good at heart, because that's just not possible (mainly considering that the heart has absolutely no function in the process of ideas, emotions, or even memories, but you get the idea).

So let's be honest with ourselves, no matter how much we'd like to change these ideas, these people, it more than likely won't happen. Not to say that it's utterly useless to make an attempt, because that would basically contradict everything both of us have said. But acting like we're all going to change something like this on any significant scale is just delusional.

I'm sorry if I upset anyone. Believe me, that's not my intent. But I don't think it would be fair to let everyone sit here and talk about how this type of change is so plausible, because it isn't.

Regardless, in reference to you last few lines:

Lollipope said it best:

By no means am I saying that what you just said is equal or comparable to institutionalized sexism or heterosexism...but really? Using frat dicks to represent hetero cis men is no better than the morons on mensrights who dealt with a few vapid sorority girls and therefore dn't respect women. There are plenty of hetero cis men who are your allies here, cut that shit out.
Just to be clear, I'm not being oppressed here. This isn't a matter of my rights. This is a matter of "well they do it too!" is the weakest moral ground to stand up. Come on, rise above the level of the people you are mocking.

Edit: Since I can't say it this well, I thought why not?

Credulous at best, your desire to believe in angels in the hearts of men.
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen.
Shouldn't have to say it all again.
The universe is hostile. So Impersonal. Devour to survive.
So it is. So it's always been.

Seriously? We have our own trans-supremacist empire? We're lucky if we can walk down the sidewalk at night without being raped and murdered. If you're more bothered by the sometimes-vulgar anger of an extremely marginalized and oppressed group than you are by the subhuman status of most trans people in society today, you need to take a good, hard look at your priorities.

This is why I cannot take the "Identity Politics" turn in academia the least bit seriously. And believe me, in pursuing degrees in philosophy and history, I bumped up against it more than enough. For every Daphne Patai, there are ten Andrea Dworkins. Every voice within this intellectual sphere who tries to inject a little level-headed rationality into the discussion is shouted down by simps braying that "hetero cis men are fucking disgusting" and hapless singalongs trying desperately to sweep over how fucking ridiculous such an outlook is by defaulting to, "Oh, it's just righteous indignation against a corrupt hierarchy".

When this whole polluted, venal cathedral of lunacy comes crashing down on your heads and this ideological fever dream you're trying to pass off as an intellectual discipline cooks your brains to mush, I hope you will be able to hear my laughter. Because, motherfuckers, you will have earned every second of it.

Look, you want to be taken seriously? Don't commit the sins for which you condemn your enemies.

This really confused me for a while there because it seems like you're the type of person who would love SRS if you took the time to explore what it's really like. Everything you said in this post was beautiful and dead on... except for your characterization of SRS.

I think you have this all wrong. SRS is about rallying a mob around people they disagree with, rather than just disagreeing with them as individuals. That's whats wrong with SRS. You're trying to equate random individuals who do not (despite your claims otherwise, you have this "society as the oppressor" view) share an agenda to a whole subreddit devoted to mobbing down on people they disagree with. You're trying to flip this as if SRS is the 'adult' coming down on the 'children' because to you (and thats the key part here, its your opinion) SRS is pursuing something more "adult" like. In my opinion SRS is even more childish then the posts they come down on. You get a group of adults together, they light their torches, and they push their agenda forcibly down the throat of the community at large. You know what doesn't change the mind of a bigot or those reading a bigot's posts? A bunch of people just as bigoted and hateful flooding the post. You might think teefs comments are defensible, but they are not. In your scenario, a rich white businessman would be justified of his opinion that all black men are criminals because his businesses have been robbed by black men on more than one occasion. Is that the truth? You are not absolved of hatred and being a bigot because you are within the minority.